Back to The Drawing Board - S4E1 Return to the Drawing Board

This episode explores the challenging yet rewarding journey of PWS Architecture and Theo's university adventures over the past year, with highlights including a notable increase in project inquiries, shifts in project types, and changes in the team. We reflect on our achievements and personal challenges while looking ahead to ambitious plans for the future. 
• Detailed recap of 184 project inquiries
• Breakdown of project types and notable commercial projects
• Discussion of team dynamics during a busy year
• Insights into personal challenges faced by staff 
• Future goals focusing on creativity and competition

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Hello, hello and welcome Hi. It's been a while. I know it's been a very long while We've been gone. It's been nearly a year. I think what we've realized is what I've just realized is. Whenever someone walks into that corridor. It's like I've had a good idea, hmm.

Speaker 2 0:15

Except we haven't.

Speaker 1 0:16

We can fix that in post, which we won't. We will not, but we might not be able to. It's been a year, basically because what we've realized last year was it's been a year basically because what we've realised last year was there is no way we can maintain running a business. Everything goes along with that Going to university, doing everything goes along with that Having some children.

Speaker 2 0:32

Having a child, yeah, and also already having another one, a whole family. I suppose you could call it Expanding the business, yeah so you'll notice we've moved.

Speaker 1 1:01

yeah, we are in a different room of the office so you can't see it, but there's another room there. That's where we were recording last time and where we may move to in the future, but for now there are people in there doing work and we're sitting here. We are going to take a lot. Lauren's not in today. She needs Hannah.

Speaker 2 1:20

And those are unfamiliar names to our regulars, to everyone.

Speaker 1 1:23

Yes, Because, as of this year, we've employed three more people but lost one of them.

Speaker 2 1:29

We don't know where they've gone.

Speaker 1 1:30

No, I checked down the back of the sofa.

Speaker 2 1:32

We're hoping to find them. Eventually They'll pop up, they maybe will.

Speaker 1 1:35

Everything will be okay. Yeah, but it's been a year, it's been a long year. So, as we did last year, I've seen year a lot get a year counter on that. We're now going to do a recap of the last of the last. What 365 days, how many? Oh, 366 days was a leap year Year Just to cover, year when we've been as we did previously. So deep breaths, deep breaths. We've got this. I am phil director at pws architecture and design limited, a northeast-based architectural practice, and this is my intern, not intern.

Speaker 2 2:18

Intern can't say employee. My apprentice, yeah, but not really. This is soon to be apprentice.

Speaker 1 2:24

Yeah, this is my Friend. Oh, this is my bestie, theo.

Speaker 2 2:29

Oh hi.

Speaker 1 2:32

Beedle, beedle, hey, but severe dry mouth from this.

Speaker 2 2:38

Yeah, no, this is crazy Okay.

Speaker 1 2:40

I'm going to repoint direct.

Speaker 2 2:42

I'm just going to. When you're editing this, you're going to hear some boom, boom, boom. Interestingly and this isn't relevant Phil's now the editor, as opposed to me, and Theo is in charge of socials, so the production value will likely go up and the social media value will likely remain the same. It's going to be constant so I guess I'll start.

Speaker 1 3:06

I guess you will, Because it's the top of the list on the show notes. You've got the list of. I've just got.

Speaker 2 3:09

GarageBand because I'm scared. Fair enough, I mean unbranded audio company.

Speaker 1 3:15

So, as last year, we spoke about essentially what happened in PWS over the year, we'll run through that now. So this year we have had a total of drumroll 184 project inquiries, wow that's so many.

Speaker 2 3:31

Oh, my God and Phil, how many of those did we take on?

Speaker 1 3:34

So we started at project 401 this year and we've ended it on 490. So that is 89 projects 89 projects. But there's a caveat to that. I'm not going to include eight of those because they're currently, as of writing, that on the first day of the year we're at inquiry level, ready for a consultation. So we don't actually know if we're going to take them on.

Speaker 2 3:55

They're in the air. Something's in the air, yeah.

Speaker 1 3:57

So we're counting it as 81, for now, of the 28, of the 28 of the 81 28 were worked on, which gives us a win percentage of 34.5679012 percent, which is down from last year.

Speaker 1 4:16

But still pretty good. Still pretty good, I mean, last year we won 38.3 percent, so it's not as if it's a drastic change, which is okay, because that's kind of what we're aiming for. Still, we're still in that phase of adjusting prices, adjusting what we take on, how we do things. So we've got new staff members. All these things are influencing that. So it's still pretty damn good. We're still pretty damn busy, which is the important thing we do not have a moment between us except from this one.

Speaker 2 4:45

Yes, right here we're taking that opportunity once again. We don't actually have this. Yep, this is a pocket in time.

Speaker 1 4:52

Yep, but here we are a figment of our imagination. So in those projects because obviously last year we spoke about that we'd started doing commercial projects of which we had- juan, and it was a damn good one. Well, this year we've got seven.

Speaker 2 5:06

What.

Speaker 1 5:07

I don't know, including an MOT service garage rebuild. So it's a local firm who are looking to take down their current establishment and build a purpose built one instead of one that's a cobbling together of different sheds.

Speaker 2 5:19

And, as we famously say, local is good. It doesn't rhyme, but it's a fact.

Speaker 1 5:24

Yep, local is focal. No, it doesn't work either. Anyway, one industrial unit which is not nearby but came as a bit of a favor for a friend type job. It's turned into a bit of a nightmare, but it is what it is. We have two more new builds to our roster. We have one hq slash office, slash bus depot for another local travel firm, multidisciplinary it is. We have and this is a long one, ready, brace yourselves. Renovation, restoration, conservation of four properties to Airbnbs, conservation of a stone garage to a micro home, conversion of another garage into utilities, conversion to air source heat pump, addition of solar arrays, hot tubs, saunas, landscaping to form a wellness Airbnb retreat, which is technically three separate projects. The guy bought one, then bought the next one in the terrace and then bought the last one in the terrace in stages.

Speaker 2 6:17

I nearly fainted while I was holding my breath through that. You shouldn't have.

Speaker 1 6:21

I shouldn't have held my own breath. You may need some help, I might. We've also had one offices slash social hub into the list and then the rest, which is 19 projects, were domestic extensions, renovations, new builds of some description. This year seems to have been the year of the loft, because every project seems to involve a loft. If it's a renovation, an extension, if it's a something, it seems to have a room somewhere in. That's a renovation, an extension.

Speaker 2 6:48

If it's something, it seems to have a room somewhere in that roof space. The Architect's New Year comes sometime around April. It's the year of the loft.

Speaker 1 6:54

This year no it's a tax return that comes in April. Corporate tax, I'm getting used to it, anyway. So four of these projects are listed buildings Eleven in a conservation area, one was in Greenbelt, one has special requirements for a disabled client, 8 were deep retrofit or eco-friendly additions. 3 of the above are that monster job that we just discussed and 7 are commercial projects.

Speaker 2 7:20

Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a year. It's been a year, and I think as well, we've had 3 new members of staff, ladies and gentlemen, it's been a year.

Speaker 1 7:26

It's been a year. It's been a year it has, and I think as well we've had three new members of staff.

Speaker 2 7:30

We're down two old members of staff, Down two gained three, so we're one up.

Speaker 1 7:34

One up, which is in terms of permanent staff members, is a 33% no 25% increase. I'm still here. You'll be permanent in August once you come back from Malaysia, which we'll speak about later, which is why we'll be batch recording again Again.

Speaker 2 7:51

But instead of doing, instead of doing the batch recording when we do one and forget, we're going to try and do it.

Speaker 1 7:56

We're going to do one a week for the next three months so that the three months he's away we've got one every other week.

Speaker 2 8:02

Let's not confuse this. We're going to be releasing one every two Every two weeks. Recording one every one week, One every one week it's going to be stacked up, stacks and stacks and stacks of recordings.

Speaker 1 8:14

But not as bad as it was last year, where it was three a day for two weeks and then not ever again. And then losing them yeah.

Speaker 2 8:22

To a technical error.

Speaker 1 8:24

Oh yeah, we swapped from Google Drive to Dropbox and that just corrupted most of the files.

Speaker 2 8:32

I think we had like a hundred videos recorded. That's what we'll let them know and lost them all and we didn't tell anyone about it. We just cried silently and then got on with our lives and then completely forgot that we probably should have said something.

Speaker 1 8:45

And here we are, in the new year. We're still here. So in that time personally has been a disaster. That's 2024. Started a renovation of my own house which I had to go and pause for quite a significant amount of time.

Speaker 2 8:57

It's resuming on Sunday.

Speaker 1 9:00

It's resumed already actually. Yeah right, I cleared it out, did you?

Speaker 1 9:06

yeah, well there's no more stuff on the floor yeah, I cleared it out, got all the brick work finished, all of the structural bits finished, because we had a brickie who unfortunately passed away so we had to get another brickie in to finish it and he did a lot of the structural stuff. So now we've new roof. Structural work's done, it's cleaned out. I am currently reviewing prices for windows and doors. We just need to get the flat roof finished and the roof window on which has now been delivered.

Speaker 2 9:32

We need to paint some fascias.

Speaker 1 9:34

We're going to paint all the fascias. Yeah, that's our job. Barge boards, fascias, soffits and exposed beams on the outside all need painting. Painting what colour? Black? Ooh, traditional. You've got a lot of black paint. Yes, it's going to be very traditional, obviously, because it's a 200 year old building, le cottage, like the cheese. Yeah, and then we've had various personal problems, including my own health falling to pieces.

Speaker 2 9:58

Yeah, we is mainly the royal film.

Speaker 1 10:00

Yeah, film, film, it's been a bit of a disastrous year, but we're getting through. Yeah, surv sounded to film.

Speaker 2 10:05

Yeah, that's film. It's been a bit of a disastrous year, but we're getting through. Yeah, yeah, it's fine Surviving, thriving.

Speaker 1 10:08

So yeah, I mean in terms of everything for PWS. I thought it's gone quite well. We've stayed in the same office and we are now officially been here for over a year. We've decorated the other room. This room is clearly, as you can see up and then we didn't.

Speaker 2 10:22

We could have put a plant there and moved to these books, but we haven't done that Might do that for the next episode.

Speaker 1 10:28

We even forgot to plug the TV into something that says something.

Speaker 2 10:31

But look, we've got.

Speaker 1 10:34

Behind you is a coffee station. There's a reception desk just off screen that you can't see.

Speaker 2 10:38

Should we do a tour of the nursery office?

Speaker 1 10:40

We'll do it at some point. Yeah, my one-year-old daughter's toys are all working. About Many toys.

Speaker 2 10:46

Either way, there's more toys than there are MacBooks in here, and that's saying something.

Speaker 1 10:50

Not as many as there are Apple products, just MacBooks specifically. But we are here and we're going well. Yourself, have you been up to theatre?

Speaker 2 11:00

I've been doing well. I've been doing very well. It was a bit of a stressful, bit of a stressful semester. It was a busy one. We were designing a block of flats.

Speaker 1 11:08

You didn't glorify that in any way because, it's not just a block of flats is it.

Speaker 2 11:19

Oh, I might have gone a little bit freaky with it. It's a pretty block of flats. I might have made it as hard for myself as humanly possible with the use of many bridges and plants and bridges, and bridges and bridges and bridges. I think I had something like 16 bridges spanning across open air. That was stupid of me and I got to the end of it and I looked at it and I went I don't like that. And then, after handing it in, I then redesigned the entire thing completely in the space of two days and thought why didn't I do that? I had time to submit it and get like a late mark, but probably still do better. But say it with your chest. Sailor V. Sailor V.

Speaker 1 11:57

Good man.

Speaker 2 11:59

But health wise I'm better than you.

Speaker 1 12:07

Thanks for that.

Speaker 2 12:09

You're not wrong though and there's the spikes in the audio that I'm going to have to edit out oh you can edit it out.

Design Projects and Year Reflection

Speaker 1 12:17

I'm going to stop you no, you're editing oh yeah. So how was the second year experience then? Did you just work on the one project over the year?

Speaker 2 12:28

this bit will add to that, because I'm I'm processing the question I'm not going to edit anything out.

Speaker 1 12:33

It's been raw and uncooked, because this is going to be a short one anyway, isn't?

Speaker 2 12:36

it. Yeah, true, I designed my block of flats. I did a full fire report for that block of flats. I did a full set of construction drawings for that block of flats. I drew up some good looking stuff. I say drew it up, I rendered it. This was all for university Over summer. I definitely did some work. You did, you were here the whole time I earned the money, so I definitely did it. The question is, what did I do? Because that was a long time ago and a lot has happened in between.

Speaker 1 13:08

You did a lot of projects. You did the one up in. Wow, I can't use clients' names.

Speaker 2 13:14

No, we cannot. That's what's throwing us. We can use locations.

Speaker 1 13:17

Yes, I'm thinking the one just south of Morpeth.

Speaker 2 13:20

Oh, the cottage. Yes, yeah, that was a nice looking cottage.

Speaker 1 13:26

It was a nice looking cottage.

Speaker 2 13:27

Interesting designs, interesting results, interesting client. I like them. I like everyone that I'm working with. That's true.

Speaker 1 13:34

Well, that's the point of us being as picky as we are yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 2 13:37

Actually, if we ever get anyone we don't like, that's kind of a that's our fault yeah, and we've only me to blame. Yeah, oh dear, um, we worked on that, you work yeah, you make it very clear on these notes that it's all down to you, even the mistakes even the mistakes.

Speaker 1 13:52

Well, I'm in charge of everything. I suppose it's all on my shoulders, boss, dog, yeah, don't ever call me that again.

Speaker 2 13:57

Dog. Yes, I hate the P word.

Speaker 1 14:02

You worked on the super eco-friendly rear extension with the pottery studio.

Speaker 2 14:07

Yes, yes, super timber frame, which for my Scottish friends that's just standard behaviour. But down here in England we like bricks, we like burning things, especially the atmosphere, the ozone layer, uh, but you know, with slowly they're moving down from the north all the way down from, like sweden, whatnot? Into scotland and then slowly into the united kingdom. Uh, scotland is the united kingdom in england where that's one of the we're learning about wood.

Speaker 1 14:37

It's one of the most surprising things We've been designing. Obviously, at PWS we do a lot of eco stuff and we've been designing in wood for ages and the builders always go.

Speaker 2 14:43

can we do it in?

Speaker 1 14:44

bricks. That's exactly what ends up happening is they'll come to the tender stage and unless it's a very diehard eco warrior type client, it's very difficult, and I can appreciate where they're coming from, having paying for my own construction at the moment. It's a budget and when something comes in and says it's going to be X thousand cheaper, sometimes it's it's hard to say no to.

Speaker 2 15:02

It's more than just four figures.

Speaker 1 15:03

Sometimes it's five figures of difference. You're looking at 10 plus thousand pounds in the face. Yeah, your morals might waver a bit. Yeah, and I totally understand where clients come from. It does mean that we end up last minute having to redesign the entire construction package, but c'est la vie, c'est la vie, c'est la vie.

Speaker 2 15:21

So C'est la vie.

Speaker 1 15:22

I don't even know how we got on. Oh yeah, things you were doing over summer.

Speaker 2 15:29

Yeah, yeah, eco stuff. We did a couple in conservation areas, A lot of rear extensions.

Speaker 1 15:35

We did a lot of. We did the landscaping job together. Yeah, being pretty visual, heavy, A lot of rear extensions.

Speaker 2 15:38

We did a landscaping job together. Yeah, being pretty visual heavy, I got real into my visuals. This year I've done the world's most over-the-top carriage conversion. Yeah, I saw this house and I thought I'm going to brick-by-brick model this correctly.

Speaker 1 15:56

To be fair, the client is A legend. A legend. He's very open-minded and he basically said to us I've got this garage, I don't know what to do with it.

Speaker 2 16:07

He said we want one realistic design and we know you do three, so just take it away. On the other two and take it away. We did, yes, we took it.

Speaker 1 16:16

We had a hangar door made of polycarbonate with a grow lava behind it An internal house, greenhouse. We invented our own interior design style of overgrown industrial. Yeah abandonment.

Speaker 2 16:31

A lot of yellow sofas I almost designed. Oh yeah, I went full art gallery on the interior for that first one. Offers I almost designed. Oh yeah, I went full art gallery on the interior for that first one. It was like a bit of an Airbnb granny flat, which I don't think you're meant to say anymore. I've heard a rumour it's an annex.

Speaker 1 16:48

Well, that was the primary purpose we had was a little annex for his ever-growing family.

Speaker 2 16:53

Yeah, as well as somewhere to display all of his retro collection of Apple products Absolutely, and well as somewhere to display all of his retro collection of Apple products Absolutely. And he needed a reason to kick his kids' storage space out. Yes, yeah. So Design a house and they're big on their plants, so he made them a grow lab. Oh, so many plants, so many plants. I'm impressed, having started growing plants this year. I'm actually very jealous and impressed with them.

Speaker 1 17:14

Which you can see, actually very jealous and impressed with them. Which you can see, yeah, because you can't see from here, but through there we've got loads of plants, yeah you can see through the frosted glass.

Speaker 2 17:23

Although, to be fair, the one plant we've got in here is a fake plant. We should have stacked them up. Oh well, we didn't Like. We said, we didn't prepare for this.

Speaker 1 17:30

The plan at some point is to build this wall out properly, so we'll get there. We, we'll get there.

Speaker 2 17:33

We want to bring. This is for all of you guys. This is our client space kind of reception.

Speaker 1 17:40

Except for we've taken the sofa out. We have taken the sofa out. We've dumbed it down a bit because Vic was busy. In the back of the background there were kids, toys Everywhere, tractors, pink, bright prank.

Speaker 2 17:52

Tractors, bright prank, bright prank, bright prank. So I've done other things as well. What else have I done?

Speaker 1 17:58

You've signed up to go to Malaysia. Oh yeah, You've also done half of a third year book.

Speaker 2 18:03

I've done half of a third year. Well, that was my block of flats.

Speaker 1 18:06

So what did you do in second year? Second year Because, the last time we spoke, we only spoke about first year.

Speaker 2 18:11

Second year I liked my library. I went full on how to make people with neurodivergent disorders feel more productive and comfortable in this space. So if you need a specialist, legally I'm not, but I'm pretty good with it. I have done a lot of research into that.

Speaker 1 18:29

And we've all got first-hand experience. Oh yeah, oh yeah, there's three of us in the office. At least have some form of diagnoses.

Speaker 2 18:42

And then I also did a restaurant which I did a really bad job of, and I'm annoyed by that because it's actually the perfect scale for me and I love it. I got really excited. Did you fumble it? I committed too much, I went too big on my concept and I yeah, I didn't put it off, which is a shame, but still I managed to get a high enough mark to go abroad, and not for any choice of my own, but I'm very happy I've ended up being assigned with Malaysia.

Speaker 1 19:08

That sounds good, that sounds pretty good, so do you know what you'll be doing there though?

Speaker 2 19:11

Not much uni work. I can say that I'm going to be touring the place.

Speaker 1 19:15

So is it a university place place.

Speaker 2 19:17

It's not a practice place it's a university, yeah and uh, one of the lecturers at my uni was saying he got invited to go to one of their end of year shows one time and he was looking around and he was saying this all seems a bit familiar. And he was looking at these blocks of flats that students have designed and these restaurants and these libraries and he went this all seems weirdly familiar. And he got teaching at one of the lecturers there and he said, yeah, we actually use your briefs, so there is a chance I might be redesigning one of the projects I've already done.

Speaker 1 19:47

I hope it's the restaurant then?

Speaker 2 19:49

Yeah, I hope it's the block of flats.

Speaker 1 19:52

So, in terms then of the first year, second year, experience, what would you say is the key difference between first and second year? We'll leave third year till next year's review.

Speaker 2 20:02

Well, first year I put a lot of effort into not doing what I was comfortable with, because in first year I'd already been working with you for a year. You'd been working with me for more than a year, I think it was about a year. Anyway. Well, this is the fourth year.

Speaker 1 20:17

Yeah, and I'm in third. Yeah, so two years ago you'd been with us for more than one year.

Transitioning to Colorblind Architecture'Hobbies Into Business

Speaker 2 20:23

Anyway. So I put a lot of effort into just like doing stuff that's out of my comfort zone, trying to do hand drawings and stuff, trying to do things I was unfamiliar with because I didn't want to just do what I knew. And, in fairness, I found first year quite easy as a result of having worked here. Um, because it was kind of just I could do the bits that I can do, the essential bits, no problem. But actually trying to make it fun made it more of a challenge. And then second year was a bit more make it real, considering fire eggs, stuff like that. A bit more construction. Um, in my first year I had full-on floating art galleries. Yeah, that was great. That looked like it was straight out of minecraft and I loved it. It was funny, it was just funny, but it was great. Um, but yeah, second year was a lot more real. And then I know we're not talking about it, but third year was real. Uh, we were yeah, so it's.

Speaker 2 21:19

Essentially it's a development of the level of information required and the projects, the projects, as well as the amount of information, get bigger and bigger and therefore more and more intense every single time, to the point where you're thinking we need an entire design team on this.

Speaker 1 21:33

But it's just me, I'm not salty did we or did we not facetime most weekends? I think we didn't do anything to do with work, but we had a few hour facetime. I was sat in here on a saturday and we had a four hour.

Speaker 2 21:48

Great I. I had gone to make lunch and thought I'd call you while I was making lunch.

Speaker 1 21:52

And I don't think I made lunch I think, I think I we ended up and I'm ending it because I had to go home.

Speaker 2 21:57

Yeah, at the end of the working day you thought I should go see my family now.

Speaker 1 22:02

Because, despite expanding the business further and further with more staff, we're still swamped with work, and I have to work evenings and weekends. Yeah, oh well. Hopefully that gets fixed whilst you're back for the next few months. Cest love is Cest love. I.

Speaker 2 22:16

These hydration tablets, we're not sponsored. I know we're not, I'm not going to say anything about them but Other ones are available. It tastes juicy, it's like black currant flavoured, but it's healthy. There's no sugar and there is hydration. Also, I think they're a bit of a fad, because if I'm putting it in 1.5 litres of water, I think I know where the hydration is coming from. Yeah, but you need. Yeah, we're not going in there, let's make this a science show um yeah, just take back to the drawing board.

Speaker 2 22:45

Back to the drawing board yeah, literally all right, I see where you are, so that's, you need tonga cva. I'm interested to see how you respond to this, because I've not told you this yet. I've been having a little thought experiment in my head Okay, okay, and I'm thinking what if I set up colorblind architecture as an actual firm? Now, it would be the same way a 50-year-old man makes model airplanes. It would be on the weekend in my garage out of work time, but it would be nice to have something where I can be completely choosy, because not many people have the privilege of being able to be really picky. And obviously this is my work, where I can say I'm making money and I'm doing my fun stuff. But if I've got that, I can be like very, I could try and do like a little competition bit.

Speaker 1 23:34

um, well, that's one of the things I wanted to do more this year.

Speaker 2 23:37

I'll be good is moving into competitions yeah, and it gives, it would give me the experience of doing it. But I kind of fully want to do it as like a bit of a hobby, with no pressure on it, so I can sort of set it up. There's nothing to stop you, exactly, um, and there is everyone to help me the only thing that would be in.

Speaker 1 23:55

I think there's something in your contract of employment that says there's a non-compete thing, so you can't go after our client.

Speaker 2 24:01

Yeah, but I've actually written out my little business model and there's a business, not business model, but it's.

Speaker 2 24:08

I wouldn't really do residential business yeah, I wouldn't really do residential because obviously that's our main kind of target, I suppose. And it would be sort of I was asking you about tender today. It would be kind of things for tender which we don't really do anyway, and like competition-y stuff which isn't competing directly anyway. I suppose everyone's competing, that's the whole point of it. But it would be such low intensity that the whole point is I'd be doing it on my own time for the fun of doing it. Up to you. Yeah, that's something I've been thinking about.

Speaker 1 24:46

Good luck paying for all of your insurances then.

Speaker 2 24:49

Oh yeah, Well, hey, this is why I'm coming to you. It's expensive.

Speaker 1 24:53

I think we spend about £475 a month on insurance. Yeah, I think we spend about £475 a month on insurance.

Speaker 2 24:58

Yeah, well, that's it. I'm thinking like Then, when you come back full time, we'll go pay even more Because it will only be me. And I'm thinking how Low intensity can I be To reduce, completely, minimise Overheads? But, as I say, this is all Work from home. Yeah, I will be. I'm not going to be renting out an office to do a hobby. We'll sublet to you if you want.

Speaker 1 25:21

You can have your desk.

Speaker 2 25:24

Can I have my key to the office as well? You've already got one. That's what I mean.

Speaker 1 25:29

I was about to say why don't you just come in here and work on a weekend?

Speaker 2 25:31

but I'm here working on a weekend. That's perfect. I can pick your brains and annoy you, but that's what I mean.

Speaker 1 25:37

I don't want to do it as a full-on trying to make money, because this is how I make my money. I was going to say a lot of the competitions have like a student version anyway. So if that's all you're going to be doing, why don't you just enter it as a student, put your Colorblind Architect logo all over it and then, even better, we'll do the same competition in-house More entries and then see who comes higher up the ranking list at the end. Imagine the bruise to my ego if you got shortlisted and I didn't. You'd be out the window.

Speaker 2 26:10

We're on the second floor, you'd be out the window. I hate that. This is the second floor because it's three floors up. I think there's one thing that the Americans really do right Lifts. The first floor is the floor you go in on. I don't mind if you say ground and then second, okay, but the first floor is not the second floor you get to. That makes no sense and never will.

Speaker 1 26:37

I don't know the reason behind that. If I'm being honest, I haven't gone around to that one. No sense and never will. I don't know the reason behind that. If I'm being honest, I haven't gone around to that one.

Speaker 2 26:41

I hate when I write it down and like I'm explaining, I'm like, so you're on the first floor brackets, the second one I do. I'll do it. I'll do it on emails to clients so that they know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 26:51

I've had a few get confused about that. At least they know what a roof looks like.

Speaker 2 26:54

Yeah, roof plan the top.

Speaker 1 26:59

So, yeah, that's one thing, because I thought to myself so obviously, the way that the business is structured, we have to pay X amount of money per month to keep it going. But when you come in, we're already paying for your laptop, we're already paying for your software, we're already paying for the office. The amount it goes up by is essentially your wage. So, rather than what we do currently is we pay Theo a percentage of the work that he does on a project. So if he does, I'm essentially a contractor?

Speaker 2 27:24

Yeah, so if he does, that's exactly what I am.

Speaker 1 27:25

That's exactly, yeah. So whatever you do, you earn a percentage of whatever we invoice to the client. When the client pays us, we pay Theo so.

Speaker 2 27:33

I'm no permanent cost.

Speaker 1 27:38

Yeah, so he's no permanent cost. But once he comes back in August after Malaysia you will be full-time salaried blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 27:43

So, In the wise words of Queen, I will be under pressure.

Speaker 1 27:45

Doom, doom boom, ba-da-doom boom. But the way that that then works is because you're so cheap to get on, because it doesn't increase our operation costs that much more. It means that everyone else in the office benefits and has to earn less to keep us all operational, which in theory then means more time to do more things. Yeah, so my hope is by the end of the year we're starting to do more things like competitions. Like competitions, we can spend more time on doing visuals, 3d models, and start to kind of pump those bits out. At the moment we're focusing heavily on visuals for social media purpose and so that people can see what we can do, because what we can do is pretty frigging impressive.

Speaker 2 28:23

If we are allowed to go for it or if we go over the due date of the garage conversion by a certain amount we can really show off or we don't even need to go over, because we can give ourselves a little bit more breathing room.

Speaker 1 28:34

Yeah, I think that's it, because we can give ourselves a little bit more breathing room. Yeah, I think that's it is trying to find the people who are willing to let you take it that's what I noticed when you were sort of full-time over summer particularly if we look at the cash flow is that I got my evenings and weekends back, but everything stayed as normal, like there was no additional pressure for us to be working extra, to have to.

Speaker 2 28:57

Well, it's already that what I've been doing for this, the week I've been back, is just taking some weight off everyone else's shoulders by doing visuals for social media and now doing a little bit of work that you don't necessarily have and free time to do some of its hourly rate work yeah, so it's like the clients are coming to us with, say, say, this example would be he's had a bit of a mad idea of what he wants to do, kind of says you know what, before we go to planning, let's explore this mad idea we've got.

Speaker 1 29:26

Can I just see it through? And I've. Obviously I'm booked up for like three months, so Theo coming in can just take a little bit of that and it benefits the client because you're cheaper per hour than I am and it's a win-win. They get what they want in a timely manner. You get what you want paid in a timely manner.

Speaker 2 29:45

The only problem is that I have to drop all of my morals to do just a crazy idea.

Speaker 1 29:50

Yeah I think half of it's a bad idea. I think the other half. I can see why I don't think it's the best idea, but I obviously will explain that to him. I know we've already you and I have discussed.

Speaker 2 30:04

But again the other half looks like a sausage.

Speaker 1 30:06

The other half does look like a sausage. But I know we've also discussed whether we just say, right, this, we don't like this bit. We've made some adjustments to what you asked for to make it a little bit nicer. But even then, on the other one, the other side, oh, okay. There's no salvaging that one.

Speaker 2 30:21

There is not, and I think when he sees it he'll understand why. I've seen examples of it before from people from us for what we've been asked to do, where they've been like, yeah, do it.

Speaker 1 30:38

And we've shown them and they're like no, no, not good, but to each their own. Yeah and yeah.

Speaker 2 30:40

He's always right in matter of taste.

Speaker 1 30:42

He's happy to pay to be basically to put the idea to bed. It's always nice, it's always really nice to get that. It's very nice, but so that's been us.

Speaker 2 30:53

That was quick. We talk fast. I know, right Quick, we'll have to put it on half speed.

Speaker 1 30:59

Have we got anything else? Should I log another year? I mean, last year we talked about New Year's resolutions, but we're not doing that again.

Speaker 2 31:04

That was my New Year's resolution make a company for the crack.

Speaker 1 31:07

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 31:07

Yeah, as a, again as a hobby, a silly hobby, but it'll be funny. What if I go to Malaysia and I come back with like five offices across the eastern world? Good luck, I'll be minted, would you? Apparently, japan produces the most architects, Really? Yeah, I'm not going to Japan, but that's not the point.

Speaker 1 31:35

So they don't need more, that's true, that's the last thing they need. Yeah, I don't think what else we've got planned for this year. Obviously, crack on with the projects we've got. We've already had four enquiries since the first. It's now the tenth.

Speaker 2 31:47

I'm determined to get you to give me a new build, because I want it. I want it, phil, I want it bad.

Design Challenge Idea

Speaker 1 31:53

We've had a new build inquiry this year actually this guy's here we'll see. We'll see how I feel I'm going down next week to meet with them. Essentially, it's a we're going down next week. I think it's just me and Sophia well okay, she doesn't need to know that she does.

Speaker 2 32:13

It's on the calendar well we could just change some, change some things around. Just all three of us turn up. Yeah, in fact, yeah, no, it's essentially someone's got an old farmhouse that was built in the 70s, which is not fit for purpose. Oh, of course you take it, Saphira, if it's a farm.

Speaker 1 32:27

Yeah, oh, she loves a farm. I'm sad we didn't get that farm project.

Speaker 2 32:30

Yeah.

Speaker 1 32:31

I really liked that it is. You can't win them all.

Speaker 2 32:34

You can't although we try, but we win about 30 percent for them 34 34.

Speaker 1 32:39

Interestingly, yeah, on that one, um, the client got in touch with the engineer. We also put them in touch with yes, and they told the engineer who they were going with, who he obviously told me who they're going with, to which he asked them not to, which is never a good sign, is it? No? And they have, which. I think we actually do have a podcast in the works. We've got a long list of podcasts to get through.

Speaker 2 33:04

We've got a long list of podcasts.

Speaker 1 33:05

And one of them is getting what you pay for.

Speaker 2 33:08

Yeah, which we'll cover, and paying what you get for and paying what you get for yeah. I mean we've got let me just count them through, because they are numbered 53 ideas. We've also got oh wait, wait, 1,000 beats, woo-hoo, awesome, anyway, sorry, the other thing we have is an interesting little design challenge in the works.

Speaker 1 33:30

Have you read through that one yet? No, are you kidding? What is it? The Dice of Destiny? Design challenge.

Speaker 2 33:38

No, okay, have you sent it to the group chat or something?

Speaker 1 33:42

No, no, I've put it in the notes for the podcast.

Speaker 2 33:45

Oh right, oh no, which is something that I've not read past this episode. I do.

Speaker 1 33:50

Which is something that even your good selves might be invited to join us on.

Speaker 2 33:56

Oh Guys, you're all in for a treat.

Speaker 1 34:01

You want me to run through it now, or?

Speaker 2 34:02

just run through it privately. Cool cats and kittens Do it. Do you want me to run through it now? Cool cats and kittens do it. So essentially, if we do it, then there's people to hold us accountable the other problem is, if we say it, someone might steal it. This is copyright even though it's a complete plagiarism of other people's ideas straight from chat gtb. I mean chat AI.

Speaker 1 34:24

I saw it on a. It was an instagram reel that someone sent me which was making a sandwich by rolling the dice, so it was like roll for the bread, roll for the butter, roll for the filling, roll for filling two, roll for filling three. Whatever, I'd be greedy and just put it all in.

Speaker 2 34:38

I'd keep rolling until it was all there. Just get 12 dice, Mate. I'd be on them. Dungeons and Dragons dice.

Speaker 1 34:43

No, the D20 style. So this actually came partially from. I walked past a building.

Speaker 2 34:53

This can't go well.

Speaker 1 34:54

Roll credits, Roll credits. So, basically, I walked past a building it was like an old abandoned water tower, windmill or whatever it was, I can't remember and I thought to myself that would be a really interesting project and I sent a picture of it to one of our developer clients. They're going to see that in there.

Speaker 2 35:15

Oh no, who said?

Speaker 1 35:16

that's a really cool building. Do you think we could buy it and put planning permission on it? You said yes. I said let's try. So I went and looked to see if it had planning permission. And it doesn't have planning permission because it got rejected. I think that's better.

Designing a Unique Architectural Project

Speaker 2 35:28

I think it's better when they don't, because there's less restrictions for us.

Speaker 1 35:31

But it was professionally surveyed, which means of course, we've got all the measurements. Yeah, we've got all the measurements. We can make a 3D model, we can take a plan of it, we've got a site plan, blah, blah blah. So here is the premise we find an interesting plot, an interesting building For example, a water tower, something like that, something along those lines. It doesn't strictly have to be a house, it can just be any building.

Speaker 2 36:01

Well, you can choose across your sides of dice.

Speaker 1 36:03

That is very true and basically see if we can find. You know, it could be Google, it could be Rightmove, it could be Instagram and other pages that show like abandoned buildings in the Northeast or interesting buildings in the Northeast or whatever. If they have existing plans, bonus points because it's easier. If not, we can make some assumptions or we can try and do a survey if it's public land that we can get access to.

Speaker 2 36:23

Oh, we're going to do a factory. Yeah, damn right.

Speaker 1 36:26

Anyway. So we're not going to get bogged down by the logistics like the services and the utilities If it's a new building or a place that doesn't currently have utilities going to it.

Speaker 2 36:36

We're essentially going to do a uni project.

Speaker 1 36:38

Yes, set your own constraints, but I think it's important that we do make use of things like air source, ground source, solar, something that's eco-friendly, because I think, one that's where the industry should be going into it's what we do quite a lot of. In essence, these will probably form nice projects and website fodder, as we call it, social media fodder, things to just put on socials. So ground rules there is no budget.

Speaker 1 37:01

This is hypothetical photographer there, let's not make it boring. There's no design style, no preconceived design style, so we can do it either as a juxtaposition, or we can do it in keeping with whatever's there, or whatever like it's going on and off. There's no planning considerations because these aren't real projects. They're not going to get built. Let's be honest.

Speaker 2 37:16

But it is worth certainly considering how you might justify it. It might be worth a conversation on that, because, if it's, maybe you're in your oh, let's try this again. Maybe you're in a culturally significant area and so it's worth it, okay. However, again, we're not going to planning. It could be a bright pink circle.

Speaker 1 37:40

It could be no environmental standard requirements. Ie, we're not aiming for for passive house. We're not aiming for any form of bonus points though yeah, of course, but we should consider air source, ground source, solar, wind generation and associated plant within the plan, and we're both using the same building, the same land the same brief which we roll below.

Speaker 2 38:06

I happened to notice while I was doing my construction drawings for my previous one that in my final submission I didn't put a door on my plant room.

Speaker 1 38:13

That's a sackable offence here.

Speaker 2 38:14

That's so bad.

Speaker 1 38:16

So, essentially there will be a series of six rolls. You will roll the dice six times.

Speaker 2 38:24

Well then, you're going to land on all of them.

Speaker 1 38:25

No, no, for different categories. So the first category is I've set these as houses, by the way, because residential is what we do and a lot of the time these abandoned buildings, unless you look at, like an abandoned factory a lot of.

Speaker 2 38:37

I think you can make very good offices. I've seen some very nice factories that have been turned into really good offices. Well, maybe then if we do stumble across a big building.

Speaker 1 38:45

Maybe we do a separate role Function For its function and it could be factory. But the only thing I don't like about those is that it then means that there's a lot of more. It's a different type of regulation that we then have to get around when we start designing blah, blah, blah, as by the by, role number one is the client. So assuming it's going to be a house or an airbnb or something along, those is residential. So if we roll a one, it is a couple or an individual. If you roll a two, it's a couple slash individual with a child, and then, as you move all the way up, so three is two children, four is three children, five, we introduce grandparents to get into that multi-generational thing. And then if you roll a six includes the three children, the grandparents and full disabled access.

Speaker 1 39:35

As the number goes up, the challenge gets harder. Exactly that. So roll number two is a hobby. You only have to roll once, but it applies to all people who are not children. So if you roll a six, for example, if you're imagining there's two grandparents and two adults, that's four people to accommodate this one hobby. Right One is a musician. Two is a fine artist. Three is a reading hobby. So you'd want a library.

Speaker 2 40:04

Take the ein out of fine art.

Speaker 1 40:06

Okay art.

Speaker 2 40:08

No, what, what oh artist, okay, very good.

Speaker 1 40:13

Four would be a workshop, so motor vehicles. I like that. Five is sculpture, wood and or metal.

Speaker 2 40:19

Dealer's choice. We converted a workshop to a house.

Speaker 1 40:22

Six is a photographer or a videographer, so you'll need things like a darkroom for old school photography Very good. Role number three is a special space requirement, so this one's a bit more intensive in terms of the actual design. Role number one would be a gym of a minimum of 20 square metres in plan. You can't just have it razor thin, but 20 square metres in section A garage and then you re-roll for the number of cars that it has to accommodate.

Speaker 1 40:54

Three is a home cinema suited to the number of occupants in row one. Four is a home bar slash games room Again size to the occupants. Five is a library and six is a home bar slash games room Again size to the occupants. Five is a library and six is a home office which is sized to suit all adults, including the grandparents Whoa, they're retired.

Speaker 2 41:19

Does not need to include the hobby space, but it can if they work together. Okay, but then you just jam an office in.

Speaker 1 41:25

When we get into.

Speaker 2 41:27

I suppose could the office be a music studio. Yeah.

Speaker 1 41:31

Okay, so it can be really interesting. Then, if you go with a videographer, photographer, that can be their office as well.

Speaker 2 41:36

Say you're a fine artist, you've got your art room, what's your office? Because surely that's your workspace.

Speaker 1 41:44

Well, surely, as an artist, you're going to need to be doing some sort of administrative work to be.

Speaker 2 41:49

But just put a desk in the corner of your studio. There you go, but you're also going to need to account for office space, in that I've been to many a studio and they have a desk in the corner, and by that I mean I've been to one If you got a messy art form.

Speaker 1 42:07

So we've currently well, we were working on a screen up, but planned considerations. You know, you're gonna need to think about ventilation, you're gonna think about moisture extract, all those fun things my person's a very tidy artist.

Speaker 2 42:15

They're very respectful anyway.

Speaker 1 42:18

So the fourth rule is a wild card requirement, and the fourth rule will inform whether you do roll number five and roll number six, so the first Round, or or sorry, I misspoke or roll number six, so roll number four is the wildcard requirement which must be implemented. There is one that I haven't yet fleshed out, but don't worry, you roll a one.

Speaker 2 42:42

If it's a roof terrace, I'm going to be the expert.

Speaker 1 42:46

Well, I've kind of put that in one of the Anyway. So roll number one would land you with a swimming pool sized to suit the family, somewhere between 35 square metres and 60 square metres, based on whichever you get on roll one. If you roll a two, you can have a small holding of animals from roll five, which is chicken ducks pigs, alpacas, goats and sheep or a pigeon fancier.

Speaker 2 43:07

No, please put a giraffe on there. No, because there's a giraffe on our blocks and I've always wanted to use it. I've always wanted an excuse to use the giraffe. Fine, whatever, can we have a seven-sided dice, please? Die, not dice, isn't it? Anyway, if you roll a, three.

Speaker 1 43:26

If you roll a three on roll. If you roll a three, you've got to implement two from roll six, which is a slide between two spaces, a fireman pole between two spaces, a climbing wall between two spaces, a cargo net, mezzanine, a ladder or a trapdoor slash hidden door.

Speaker 2 43:45

Everyone can pick their own too. No, oh, that would be interesting, because then it would get me and everyone would actually have say you're in a really limited space, and someone says, well, I think the fireman's pole on the slide will work really well, and someone else says I think the climbing wall and the ladder would work really well. I think that'd be quite interesting to see how you do a different take on it.

Speaker 1 44:02

so you're thinking, if we do the same brief, but rolls four and five, and six even, you can choose.

Speaker 2 44:08

Yeah, because that's going to.

Speaker 1 44:09

No, no, you can choose. You roll separately.

Speaker 2 44:10

Yeah, yeah, okay, that's fine. I think that'll be really interesting.

Speaker 1 44:12

I'm just trying to take out anyone being able to choose something they want to do. Yeah, yeah, I mean we.

Speaker 2 44:20

I think it would be more interesting that way, because it forces a different route.

Speaker 1 44:26

Well, back on to rule number four. If you roll a four, you have to have an aquarium of exotic fish at a 10 square meter minimum in plan. I haven't thought of one for roll five, because I did have initially. That was going to be what rule six became, but anyway, rule five, we'll think of something.

Speaker 2 44:44

I've just seen that and I know exactly where it's come from.

Speaker 1 44:48

50 foot christmas tree anyone who watched our awards thing?

Speaker 2 44:51

from last year.

Speaker 1 44:53

Well, that's what I was thinking is do we just have? Do we just have a random feature object that needs to be designed around because remember?

Speaker 2 45:00

yeah, you could say like go on ai chatbot and ask for a random feature or we just randomly generate an object.

Speaker 1 45:09

Yeah, like a giraffe, anyway. So we'll ask for a random generation of object.

Speaker 2 45:15

That sounds good yeah.

Speaker 1 45:16

I'll update the notes for that. And then if you roll a six, this is the final roll. It will result in you must having a double height space, with or without a mezzanine in part of it that is the least creative bit I've seen on there, but I'll take it you have when, when the least creative, it's going to be hard on the water tower, that's not so it's just the whole space is going to be one thing in essence, we will have an entire month to complete a sketch design.

Speaker 1 45:42

It doesn't need to be fully realized. Uh, sketches are welcome.

Speaker 2 45:47

We do models, cad 3d, the definition of a sketch design.

Speaker 1 45:50

Yeah, I know we don't, but the minimum requirements are site plan, floor plan, roof plan, 3d visual external and a 3d visual of one key internal space. Those are the minimums for both, like like for the proposal. Even that's fair and it must, and the visuals must showcase one of the items from roles two, three and four, and all must also have existing and proposed.

Speaker 2 46:18

I like this. So I think I like this a lot.

Speaker 1 46:20

So the bottom I've got some questions.

Speaker 2 46:22

My hobby has just changed from creating a business to doing this.

Speaker 1 46:25

Well, this is what I think if we do that, because it's almost like doing a competition, really, isn't it?

Speaker 2 46:29

um so I think there should be a winner yeah, I think we're too competitive, not to say you could bring everyone into it and you could say you have to do a blind vote on all of them and those who aren't the winners buy the winner a pint.

Speaker 1 46:47

I was going to say dinner, don't drink and drive. I was going to go for a full dinner. Good old steak.

Speaker 2 46:53

Steakhouse yeah.

Speaker 1 46:54

Or anyway so Many beers. I think we find a way to determine a winner and there should be a prize involved or a forfeit for the loser, one or the other. I think we do ones on on special occasions grimbo, christmas, new year, halloween, yeah, whatever we can theme them yeah, whenever uh thanksgiving for our american friends, uh, all of them, all of the holidays and then we talk about where. Where do we about? Where do we display them? Back to the drawing board PWS.

Speaker 2 47:28

On this wall, on that wall. Yes, I like that idea.

Speaker 1 47:31

I like that a lot. That was what I did over Christmas Wrote that down and had a little bit of a venti bee. Just writing it all down In verbal it doesn't sound great. I think we'll probably do some sort of yes, it does no. Verbal it doesn't sound great. I think we'll probably do some yes, it does no. I was in like it would make. It would be nicer if we had some sort of visual to explain what was going on, which I'll probably do. When we do the episode yeah, when we do some of the episodes even, but we could do one of those on one game day or whatever.

Speaker 2 47:56

So that'll be interesting. I wonder if? Yeah, I don't wonder, that's good, cool, I like that, I like that. I like that a lot. Well, we're at 1,454 beats, how many minutes? That is a tempo of 120 BPM, so you do the math.

Speaker 1 48:14

Do I buy 120?

Speaker 2 48:15

That's a pretty decent amount of minutes, I would guess Cool.

Speaker 1 48:18

So call it a day for now, and then I'll see you back here next week.

Speaker 2 48:22

That is how the intro is going to be right now. Outro oh boy, because I can't remember it. I don't know where to find it, but it was um uh, thanks for joining us. Thanks for joining us. Followers on everything, everything, everything. Instagram, youtube, real life. Uh, we do have a patreon. We don't. We don't have a patreon. I think we were going to get rid of it, weren't we? And have a Patreon. We don't, we don't have a Patreon. I think we were going to get rid of it, weren't we? And try a different method. We might have been. I think we just realised the one pence a month you were spending probably wasn't adding up to profit.

Speaker 1 48:56

We've not made any money. We've lost money. We lost hundreds of pounds doing this For now these bad boys.

Speaker 2 49:00

It's thousands of pounds, the thousands of pounds with the whole set up. Look, we're having fun and we hope you are too. We'll see you next time when we return back to the drawing board. Outro Music.